Positive Self Talk

No matter what your personal struggle is, positive self
talk plays an important role in helping to guide you
through the challenges in your life.

Are you tense?

Are you worried or anxious?

Are you depressed or angry?

Do you have a hard time reaching your goals?

Do you struggle with low self esteem or self confidence?

Are you overweight or underweight?

Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed?

Perhaps you can identify with something listed here or perhaps it
may be something else.
Either way, you can easily customize your own self talk to be more encouraging and supportive to fit your circumstance.

Believe it or not, how you talk to yourself will determine
how successful you will be at overcoming your personal challenge. No matter what, you can
make the choice to
deliberately change your unproductive, unhealthy,
negative thinking to positive
self talk. You and you
alone
hold the power inside to change.

So how do you reprogram your mind?

The brain will believe whatever you tell it most. Therefore, you
must spend time each day repeating the new, positive self talk to yourself. It is only through repetition
that your brain will adopt it's new reprogramming. Then and only then, will you
begin to change the "autopilot of your brain" to think these
new thoughts automatically.

You must be willing to work hard. If you do not repeat your new
positive self talk enough, your old automatic
thoughts will persist. Like they say, "old habits are hard to break" and that includes
your old ways of thinking.

I encourage you to keep pushing forward until you begin to feel differently and you notice
the changes taking place. Once you notice these changes taking place, don't stop! Keep going! Even by
simply repeating your new, positive self talk to yourself 15 minutes per day, twice a day for a few weeks will make an amazing
difference in how you think and feel.

Understanding how to talk to yourself properly can be difficult. If you don't know what to say to yourself,
I highly recommend Shad Helmstetter's book, What to Say When you Talk To Yourself

STEP 1: Identify Your Thoughts

Answer these questions below to help you identify negative and
anxiety producing thoughts. Write them down on paper so you can keep
track of them. You cannot move onto the next step without knowing
what your thoughts are and can look at them on paper. This is very
important!

What do you think about yourself?

What do you think will happen?

What do you think about the situation?

How do you think you will handle the situation?

What do you see in your mind when you think about
your situation?

STEP 2: Challenge Your Thoughts

Look at the thoughts you wrote down from step 1. Ask yourself
the following questions about those thoughts. Then write down
the answers on a new piece of paper. Don't be lazy! It takes
work to get better!

What is the evidence for what you fear? Is there
any proof?

How likely is what you fear actually going to
happen?

What is the worst possible thing that could
realistically happen? Be honest with yourself!

What alternatives are there for a worst case
scenario?

How helpful is the way you are thinking?

STEP 3: Replace Your Thoughts

Look at your original thoughts from step 1. You need to go
over those thoughts and take the time to write replacement
thoughts that are realistic, positive, and hopeful. Sometimes
finding new positive self talk can take a little while and requires
patience. This skill cannot work effectively without using it
consistently, so do not give up!

STEP 4: Repeat Your New, Positive Self-Talk

Repetition is absolutely necessary in order for
positive self talk to stick! It takes a lot of time for your body to catch up
with your mind. In other words, it takes a lot of effort and
hard work repeating positive self talk before you actually feel the positive
changes within your body . If you work hard and you are faithful
with practice, you will find your body eventually feeling the
effects of your new thoughts which means less and less
bothersome body symptoms.

Sorry, but you cannot just do the above steps once and be done with
it. It takes practice...lots and lots of practice. So how often
do you have to do these steps? You will have to do them as many
times as it takes to create new habits of thinking. For everyone
the amount may be different, so it's important that you don't
compare yourself to others and their recovery experience.
Repetition is absolutely necessary if you want to find recovery
from anxiety or depression.

The truth is that you get to choose
which thoughts you want to think! Why not choose
positive
thoughts? Our bodies have one job when it comes to the mind/body
connection and that is to respond to
those thoughts. Our bodies cannot tell the difference between
what is real and what is imagined therefore your body will feel
the effects of whatever it is you are telling yourself.

Another Helpful Method...

Another helpful method that will help get you started is to
Write down at least 25 positive, truthful statements in the present tense, as if it has already happened. Think of your
truthful statements as statements that could be true if you only believed them to be true.

Try starting each one of your sentences with:

I am...

I never...

I no longer...instead I...

I like...

I do not...

Not all your statements have to begin with these. They are just examples you
can use to practice with. Remember, nothing here in written in stone!

Then repeat these positive self talk statements to yourself for 15 minutes, twice
per day. Perhaps once in the morning before you begin your day and once at the
end before you go to bed.

Either way, you will be reprogramming your mind to think the thoughts you choose to think, which will be deliberate thoughts! Remember, you get to choose
the thoughts you want to think. You are in control, as long as you want to be.

Need More Help?

For extra help working with positive self talk, the information below
will be sure to help you out! What are you waiting for?
It's time to get to work! :)

** if the link you want isn't available yet, be sure to check back frequently
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Need Even More Help??

Positive self talk can go one step further! If you find repeating self talk difficult and you are pressed for time, you can record these statements into a recorder, such as the recorder on your cell phone, so you can simply listen to the statements instead. The brain will accept this method just as effectively, if not more effective, as if you were speaking to yourself aloud.

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understand that there are underlying health problems that can cause anxious and depressive symptoms. It is recommended that you seek the advice of a qualified
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